Specialization Risks
July 21, 2014
Another informed and influential voice has joined our frequent refrain that sports specialization is rarely in a student’s best interest.
David Epstein, author of The Sports Gene, offered an opinion piece for the New York Times last month that “hyper-specialization . . . is both dangerous and counterproductive.”
Epstein described the results of a three-year study at Loyola University of Chicago that found highly specialized youth had a 36 percent increased risk of suffering a serious overuse injury, including “stress fractures in their backs, arms and legs; damage to elbow ligaments; and cracks in the cartilage in their joints.”
Epstein continued: “Because families with greater financial resources were better able to facilitate the travel and private coaching that specialization requires, socio-economic status turned up as a positive predictor of serious injury.”
“In case health risks alone aren't reason enough for parents to ignore the siren call of specialization,” wrote Epstein, “diversification also provides performance benefits.” He cited “better learning of motor and anticipatory skills – the unconscious ability to read bodies and game situations – to other sports. They take less time to master the sport they ultimately choose.”
Counterpoint
February 13, 2018
There is a segment of those who are interested in public education who believe it is their privilege and responsibility to educate their children however and wherever they wish. Some parents believe they should be able to enroll their children anywhere, subsidized by taxpayers, and have immediate and full access to all the school’s programs and services.
This is a factor that helps to fuel transfers in school sports. But for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Watching on the sidelines and wringing their hands are the parents of those students who are displaced from positions and playing time on school sports teams by those who have dropped into their programs after moves from other schools ... moves necessitated not by changes in parents’ employment or other imperatives, but by parents’ changing attitudes about their local school sports team.
Transfer rules are designed in part to protect those who are not unhappy, who are not dissatisfied with a coach or playing time or the offensive system the team is using, or are willing to work through issues and learn from them. Transfer rules are designed for those who have put in their time within a program and are anticipating their opportunity to play.
Within every chorus singing “Let him or her play,” there are many others humming a different tune.